


ain't no man

by galamiel



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 08:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7837276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galamiel/pseuds/galamiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The New Mexican night sky was a swathe of black velvet embroidered with swirls of stars, gleaming, glimmering, the full moon a goddess with a round belly, her eyes watchful--and Jesse McCree, the son of a herder, a boy who would, inevitably, become a herder himself one day, stared up at her in blatant worship, eyes wide and head pillowed on his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't no man

The New Mexican night sky was a swathe of black velvet embroidered with swirls of stars, gleaming, glimmering, the full moon a goddess with a round belly, her eyes watchful--and Jesse McCree, the son of a herder, a boy who would, inevitably, become a herder himself one day, stared up at her in blatant worship, eyes wide and head pillowed on his arms.  
  
It was the first time he had been decided old enough to go on the cattle drive, with his father and his brothers and uncles. His mama, back home, had protested that he was still too little despite his age, but his father had told her that she could not isolate him, keep her youngest son hidden behind her skirts and aprons forever. And so, Jesse had joined the cattle drive.  
  
After the great droughts had wiped out much of the grazable land in the southwest and the subsequent fall of the meat industry, so reliant on the deep underground wells and dams to water and grow the rich grasses for their delicate, heavy European breed of cows, the cattle industry had once again turned back to how it was before the conception of railroads and trucks. It was rebirthed by the hands of men like McCree's father, who held smaller herds of hardier cattle, and drove them from field to field when the grazing grew rough.  
  
Not that the cattle much cared. Criollo cattle were smaller, leaner, and tougher than their European cousins. They were rangier and survivalists, springing back like weeds, much like the mestizo like McCree and his family who made a living in the barren deserts and harsh mountains that dotted the Southwest. He sometimes thought to himself that maybe the Criollo would prefer they just leave them alone to lip at the prickly pear that grew in tangled bunches among the scrub brush. Not that Jesse begrudged them that, being fond of nopales himself, albeit only when roasted over a campfire and free of spines.  
  
But, dedicated to preserving the land and allowing for regrowth, the cattle drive was necessary for more than the digestive variation for cattle than the savory taste of mesquite in their cud. Criollo cattle could survive on little but the rocky mountains and wide plains of the west were in full bloom during spring and summer, enough to fatten the livestock and give the winter fields closer to home a chance to recoup and regrow.  
  
And so it was that Jesse spent his first night of a cattle drive away from home, staring up at the goddess in the night sky and whispering his _oracións_  that his mama taught him, prayers to their lady who watched over them and their land.  
  
There was a sense of loneliness in the purple-wreathed mountains, in the ember glow of the campfire illuminating the barest outlines of the palm yucca surrounding their camp. Sometimes, it was incredible how heavy his heart could feel even when he slept elbow to elbow with his snoring brothers, with the silhouette of his Pa leaning up against the foxhole of shale and dirt and tree roots with his hat tipped down low, cleaning that gleaming silver gun of his.  
  
The ache was more like the kiss of a comforting, long forgotten lover, the sight of bright ocotillo blooms on a too-hot day--surreal, an emptiness in the pit of his stomach, a nausea forgotten as he drifted off to sleep and woke to the lowing of cattle.  
  
The sway of the saddle was a familiar one to Jesse, but the longer hours were new. He saddled his horse at sunup and they rode til midday, or as near to when they found a well or a water source and enough grass for the cattle to graze. They ate wraps made of leftover beef or rabbit from supper the night before, and then chose new horses from the remuda, headed by the second-youngest McCree son, Kenneth. He had complained about being relegated to horse wrangler again, but their Pa had reminded him that on his first cattle drive, he had been allowed to watch the cattle instead, just as Jesse would wrangle the remuda on his next drive until he had more experience to truly assist the older cowboys. Then they would continue herding the cattle down the trail until nightfall, where they stopped to allow for rest, and safety. It was too easy for the livestock to turn ankle and injure themselves in the darkness.  
  
The drive, in itself, was only a few days, but most of them would remain at the pasture for most of the summer along with the cattle, protecting them from thieves and helping birth the last of the year's bouncing calves. His _tíos_ , his uncles, would head home with some of his cousins to help with the harvest back at the homestead, but he and his brothers and their Pa would stay 'til fall.

Their summer home was a two-room structure built of adobe and nestled into the red-orange foothills of the mountains. Jesse's grandfather had built it, or maybe his great-grandfather, or the man before them--either way, it was as much as family heirloom as the gun his father had holstered at his belt, and, much later on his life, Jesse would become nostalgic for the place, for the sun-dried bricks and clay that gave off a wet, earthy smell when it rained and kept the two rooms cool even when the sun was at its highest. He would come to miss the pastures of desert grass and scrub bushes and even the odd rolling tumbleweed. On his worst days, he would remember laying in the sun-warm grasses, surrounded by happy, fat cows, cooled by a breeze that wasn't strong enough to carry quite enough relief from the baking sun at high noon, the only noise the snorts and footsteps of the cattle and the low hum of insects cooling themselves in the stagnant ponds that dotted the area.

The first, larger room of their summer home housed a kitchen, old-fashioned with pump-handled plumbing and a staircase to an underground cold room--there was no electricity up here, this far away from civilization. The McCree brothers spent what little free time they had from work here, stoking fires to cook their meals or whittling or telling off-color jokes to each other--and Jesse, the youngest, was still the only one whose skin would still flush that bright red when he heard such ribald words from his brothers' mouths. They traded off cooking nights and those who did not cook did the dishes, but somehow the eldest McCree son, James, ended up doing the bulk of the cooking; he didn't mind, and, in all honesty, he was a better cook than the rest of them combined.

The back room was smaller, and sectioned off from the front room with a heavy curtain. It held two bunkbeds, leaving four sleeping spots. They rotated bunks more often than not--only three of them were asleep at any given time, with the two who had not been on kitchen or dish duty spending the night watching the cattle. There was always the chance of injury, whether from darkness or from the pregnant cows birthing the summer's last calves, or burglary, even (or perhaps particularly, due to their isolation) up in the mountains. The Deadlock gang was growing bold and their numbers were bolstering, and more numbers meant more mouths to feed.

Pa wasn't scared of the Deadlock gang, though. And Isaac, who was older than Jesse and Kenneth but younger than James, told Jesse that Papa and some of their _tíos_ had run with gangs when they were young too, and made names for themselves. Papa was the sharpest shooter that New Mexico had seen in years, a veritable deadeye himself, and it was his reputation that kept their herd alone safe from _los pandilleros_ , the gangsters.

Jesse, personally, was a little skeptical of this. He was young but, in his opinion, there was no way his Pa had ever run with a gang. He was too soft, a man who dug an _acequia madre_   _especialmente_ to irrigate their mother's ornamental plants: nandina and maidengrass and the thick, northern ivy that climbed over their farmhouse back at the homestead. He was a man who sang with a honey-sweet voice in accompaniment to their mama's fiddle, who danced with her under the sycamores and told her things like, _besarte es como ver las estrellas_ , and other embarrassing phrases that sent their four sons running for the hills.

A man with such a tender touch could never kill, he argued to his brothers.

Jesse was paired with their Pa one night and they sat on the rough-planked porch outside the adobe house, shaded by the tile roof that hung over the edge of the house and was held up with wooden pillars. His Pa was whittling in the light of the oil lamp set between them, a cigarillo dangling between his lips. He'd pinch it between thumb and forefinger every once in a while to flick ash from it and Jesse would watch him with the eyes of a boy still young enough to revere his father. Jesse himself was trying to stay still, growing bored as the night grew cold, and crumbling the piece of cornbread he held in a napkin on his lap that James had pressed into his hands after supper. The nights were long and a boy his age was bound to grow hungry.

It felt important to stay quiet, like the peace of the desert night would be broken if he spoke, the same way the hunger of the dark sky leeched away the remainders of the sun's vibrant heat. And Jesse was, if anything, his father's son, a dreamer who listened to the voices of his heart and could speak to the heavy moon in the sky and hear her ask him for silence.

Perhaps the silence was the reason they heard it so early. Kenny's snores echoed softly behind them but forward, in the distance, was the vibration of footsteps, the slightest jangle of spurs. The hairs on Jesse's arms immediately raised, and he dropped his mess of cornbread crumbs, standing into a half crouch.

His Pa was already standing up, whittling discarded, cigarillo clenched between his teeth. He took two steps to get closer to his youngest son, his gloved hand resting on, clenching, protecting the boy's shoulder. He held the cigarillo now. "Jesse," he said, and his voice was smoke-scratchy and honey-sweet, smelled like heady tobacco and spices, a smell that Jesse would recall sometime in the future when he was feet up on a coffee table and wrapped-arms around a pretty girl, and feel a sense of disorientation about, but have no memory for, other than a name waiting on the tip of his tongue that he could not spit out.

The moon told him to be quiet and keep the peace, so he held his tongue and stared up at his Pa, who was not much taller than he was now, with his deep-set hazel eyes and listened.

"Wake your brothers," his father told him, a matching set of hazel eyes staring out from beneath heavy brows and a low-brimmed hat. His hand relaxed and then clenched again and his gut sucked in, the motions of a man making a hard decision. "Have James and Isaac meet me out here, and then take Kenny and hide in the cold cellar."

Jesse had stopped listening, to the peace of the night sky and the chirp and hum of the crickets and the rustle of the leaves, and the whir and clank of spurs in the distance, and to the wise words of a father who was weighing his own life and those of his older sons on a scale in a desperate attempt to save the youngest two. "Pa," he said, breaking the peace, voice cracking in frustration. "Kenny and I can shoot too--"

That hand went from his shoulder to his chin in a blur, clenching on his jaw and silencing his mouth. "You'll listen to me," his dreamer father, the man with a tender touch and a gentle smile, the man who kissed his mother under sycamores and tucked wildflowers in her hair, said this to him sharply--it was a demand, an order, and Jesse ducked his head and acquiesced.

James and Isaac woke at a touch and rolled out of bed to shove their feet in their boots and grab their guns before Jesse had even made it over to Kenny. The second-youngest McCree son took several shakes to wake and was grumbling, whining, wiping sleep out of his eyes as he stumbled after Jesse to the cold cellar. He was still wrapped in a blanket, and Jesse in the serape his mother had woven for him last winter, but they still shivered a little in the deep, dark underground room, huddled together for warmth.

There were gunshots outside, and cries of pain, but they were muffled and faraway and neither Jesse or Kenny could make out, or wanted to make out, whom they belonged to. Their hands laced together, the press of skin-on-skin to keep each other grounded and human while they wondered who lived and who died.

They must have dozed off at some point; Jesse woke with a start to find himself still in the cold room, Kenny snoring away next to him. He was not sure how much time had passed, but his body was cold and his muscles stiff as he stood up and stumbled his way to the stairwell and the hatch that separated the cold room from the kitchen floor. He lifted the hatch open and it was only then, as he blinked his eyes and grew used to the weak morning light that filtered through the open kitchen windows, that he realized the floor was wet, and the hatch was wet, and the stairs were wet, and his hands, his hands--he lifted them, and they were wet, too, with smears of red.

The line between boyhood and manhood was thinner than the blade of the razor his father showed him how to scrape across his slender neck and jaw, shaving away the barest vestiges of patchy blond fuzz that decorated his chin. It was the difference between wearing Kenny's hand-me-down boots and his father buying him his own honest-to-god pair, the leather still hard and unyielding, the proof in the blisters on his toes and heels.

The line between boyhood and manhood was the creak of his saddle the first day of the cattle drive and the scent of juniper that faded as they rode away from the homestead. It was the tears that had welled in his mama's eyes and the warmth of her hug as she let him leave. It was the soft clink of his father's spurs as he mounted his horse and led the way.

The line between boyhood and manhood was the red of blood on his hands as he stood up and saw that, while he had hidden in the cellar, his brothers had died for him, Isaac face-up on the packed-dirt floor of the adobe house their grandfather, or maybe their great-grandfather, had made, his blood a trail of regrets and lost hopes that made a slurry of red mud for Jesse to step in, his same hazel eyes staring sightlessly at the low, wood-beam ceiling above them.

Jesse McCree, a man through and through, stepped over his brother's body and swung open the front door. He walked past the bodies of men he didn't know, dressed in leathers and spurs and tattooed 'til you couldn't tell what was skin and what was ink. He walked past empty pastures and open gates and hoof-packed dirt trails. He walked til he found James, sitting against a splintering fence post, hands open and empty and curled upward on his lap and face dirty and tear-stained.

"What happened?" Jesse asked him.

"He was a veritable deadeye," James said, hollowly, and his words were a repeat of the tall-tales and legends that boys who worshipped their father had told around a rough hewn kitchen table just days before. "He spun the hammer and they fell, but there were more of them than us, and as soon as they..." James swallowed. "As soon as they got Isaac, he fell."

Jesse didn't ask him why he was still alive, when Isaac and their Pa were dead. He didn't ask why the cattle, their livelihood, were gone. He didn't ask if James was going to be okay, going to be able to make it back to the house, if he and Kenny would be able to make it to the homestead. He didn't ask where their father's corpse was.

His eyes, instead, were drawn towards a gleam of silver in the half-trampled threadgrass. He walked towards it and picked it up--his father's well-loved revolver, spun and empty.

Jesse McCree stuck the revolver through his belt and set off away from the pastures, away from his brothers, hazel eyes set on the horizon.

The line between boyhood and manhood was a thin one, and the dark of the night had asked him to keep the peace.


End file.
